Saturday bliss!

I am not very good at baking because I am a messy cook. I just can't deal with all the maths and the exact measurements :) but today I wanted to challenge myself with a chocolate cake with homemade strawberry jam filling. Discovery of the day (one I should have thought about myself. Thanks, mum): you can make icing sugar by yourself simply by blending normal sugar. My mum is running a campaign against vanilla-flavoured products these days so I opted for plain sugar. Apparently some of the vanilla used in cakes is even toxic (need to double check the source, but I am sticking to vanilla sticks for the time being and grinding them because mum's always right ;).

The loveliest and probably greenest part of our garden at the moment: our herb garden. Today I had a go at smelling herbs and guessing their names, just like when I was a wee girl.

If you ask me, the best one is definitely pepper mint (together with 2/3 of Prosecco wine, 1/3 of home made elderberry syrup - plus sparkling water and ice cubes, if you wish :)

Yes, I've planned some serious fat-burning/detox activities for tomorrow.

Stream of consciousness (Friday style)

Those who know me well know that on Fridays I am even crazier than usual and I just stop caring about what comes out of my mouth. Here's a wee taster of how bad it can get.

Bulls
In my next life I want to be a bull breeder. a) because I want bulls to be happy and free to run after cows b) because I am at the right height to make accurate examinations and health checks.

Toilets
I have been wondering about toilet etiquette. Why do guys always lift the toilet seat and never put it down again after peeing? Wouldn't it be more logical (and nicer for those who will empty their bladder after them) to leave the toilet seat as they found it?

Toilet accessibility issues. Last weekend I went to a cafe I had never been to before and had to use the toilet. I asked the lady behind the counter if it was accessible and she replied: "Well, I am not sure...The door's a bit narrow." to which I responded: "No problem, I can walk a bit." She replied back: "Great, then you'll be fine." Once I got to the toilet I realised that the door was ok but the toilet was a Turkish toilet. Now, how is that supposed to be accessible?

Kids
Why do they always go out on the balcony when they have tantrums? (by the way, I've always been fascinated by the fact that in English you say to have tantrums. There's no deliberate action involved, kids just have them, as if they suddenly became posessed by an evil force and couldn't do anything about it). Why do they either cry or play what sounds like war games? And why do they do it above my head? At one point they were making so much noise I really thought there was an airstrike of some kind (or nuclear bombing, wasn't sure). I went to the garden and...there it was, the bomb: a football landed right on my head. Since I don't have a balcony, I cried in the garden.

Dogs (?)
I am aware that being a Chihuahua must be hard. I mean, no one can spell their family name correctly (even I have to double check every time). Also, everyone thinks we have a cat. Then they realise it's a dog and go: "Aw, it's actually much smaller than my cat." It must be darn hard. But why (why?) do Chihua... (can't be bothered) need to assert their dogness at 7 am, just as their human friends are under the shower, and wake up the whole neighbourhood (to then go straight back to sleep and wake up at "food time")?

Adults
Why do older adults pat younger adults (me) on the head?
Why do they go for a walk in the woods and talk just as loud as football fans before a football match?
Why do I keep forgetting how old children are? I always think they are much younger (and shorter) than they actually are. I used to hate it when that happened to me when I was younger and now I am making the same mistakes and I am being told off for acting "just like a granny". Sigh!

Love
Nah, enough rambling.

Tricycle diaries

I have the feeling that since I came back from Lux I am lazier and less motivated than I used to be. Let's face it: it's hard to keep your old clients, look for new clients, apply for jobs, follow the news and try to practise interpreting while also having a social life and looking after myself. I know I shouldn't be comparing myself to others, but every time I realise everyday tasks take me double the time they take a "normal" person, I get frustrated. If I could decide I would do everything at the last minute (in fact, I still do everything at the last minute, there's nothing like a good adrenalin rush).

Since I got back I've decided to start looking after myself and try to be a bit healthier. I've always privileged brain work, but now I've realised that the body is equally important. That's why, I've started exercising again. My problem was that I was never happy with the results I got. I had the feeling all the effort and the hard work just didn't pay off. There were hardly any visible results. Impatient as I am, I just couldn't deal with it and I usually stopped exercising all together.

Today I was trying to decide wether I was happy with what I've done in these three months since I am home again. I could list some positive things, but overall I wasn't really satisfied. It felt like time just flew buy and I hadn't been able to do much.

That's what I thought until a very good friend of mine invited me to her and her boyfriend's flat for the first time. She just said to me: "Come, we're doing something different today." She did not mention there were around 50 stairs to reach her building or that the flat was too small for me to use the wheelchair inside. Guess what? I managed to climb up all the stairs (and I was surprised how fast I actually was!) and walk on crutches in the flat. There was no way I would have done this three months ago. I am now ready to climb up to the third floor tomorrow (the motivation is even greater and...ehm...more muscular this time :)

Lesson number 1: When you feel you are wasting your time or you should be doing other things, take a deep breath and keep going. It does pay off in the end.

My friend's boyfriend is a musician. At one point I asked him if he has ever stopped playing for a longer period of time. His answer was: "Not for more than three days. If I stop playing for longer I just don't feel right."

Lesson number 2: Everyone should have a musician as a friend. Never stop doing what makes you happy, no matter how hard it is.

Going back to the slowness issue. If you are in a wheelchair and you do not drive a car (don't tell me I should try to pass the driving test...it's a loooong story) you either push yourself or you let other people push you. There's a third option: an electric wheelchair. Brilliant solution, but it's heavy, it doesn't roll over high curbs and you can't take it with you everywhere you go. I have often been forced to plan my day depending on which wheelchair I was using (eg. electric ok for walks in town - not in my hometown, that goes without saying - but not for dinners at friends' places, because there are always some steps/stairs in the way).  Once you scrap the electric wheelchair option you are left with the first two: pushing yourself - but that can only be done on certain roads and for relatively short distances - or letting others push you - but that's tiring and it may result in people not wanting to spend as much time with you as they would otherwise. Free workout is good, but maybe not what most people have in mind when they hear the words: "Let's go for a coffee."

Lesson number 3: Why making things complicated when they can be simple?

I have a new toy: a wheel with a battery which you attach onto your manual wheelchair and it turns it into an electric one. Pros: when you don't need it you just unplug it and you have your manual wheelchair back. Cons: I don't know how to use it properly yet. Give me some time. And be happy about the good news: the next time we see each other you won't have to push me :)

Arse kickers

In the past few days I have been grumpy as hell. Maybe it's the weather or maybe it's because I have been talking about nuclear weapons so much recently (and I am not done with it yet). According to Buddhism, the more you talk about weapons, the more you bring out internal struggles (or something along these lines). Well, it's definitely been the case for me. From time to time I cannot help asking myself questions about life, death, love, jobs, the past, the present, the future (mine, my friends' and that of the whole of humanity).  I have now learnt that, most of the time, the answer to every problem is going for a run to get those endorphins into the system. An even better option is chocolate. Ideally you'd manage to combine the two. And that's exactly what I did yesterday. It is the most counterproductive thing you can do...but it's totally worth it!

Cakes aside, I am lucky to have many very positive and motivated people in my life. Although I am usually very good at kicking my own arse, it's always good to have some arse kickers around :) Cakes and arse kickers aside, there's nothing like a translation on electro-ejaculators for bulls to put things in perspective :)

Mlini na veter

V soboto v marketu Conad na Opčinah: "Čo, si vidla, da so aumentirali preco od deteršivou?" 

#languagenazi oziroma kako sem vrgla puško v koruzo

Run like there's no tomorrow

I have realised that I am often very lazy about things, especially when they require a lot of time and effort. However, I am also extremely stubborn so when I really set a goal for myself I know am going to achieve it no matter what.

This is what's been happening with running/rolling :) I have no clear goal in mind (no half marathons coming up), but I am somehow motivated enough. Knowing that I spent a whole five months without exercising although I could have easily gone to the gym which was just across the road (well, I wonder if anyone thinks it's easy after a whole day at work) makes me feel extremely guilty. Since I am hoping to go back to Lux and I know I'll probably end up working just as much again, I have decided to lose those extra kilos so that I can regain them in the future and still be reasonably fit (probably not the healthiest of motivations... :).

I have been running every day for the past two weeks now*. I usually only run for about than half an hour. Partly because I don't want to overdo it and partly because I cannot handle constant offers of help and questions from passers-by for longer than thirty minutes. I have decided not to use the friendly "bugger off" sign I made because, afterall, knowing that there are people out there who are willing to help is a good thing. Imagine if I got stuck in a hole on the road (roads in Italy are disastrous!) or if I fell and got no help because of that sign. Not cool. My new technique is: push hard(er) and avoid eye contact. It's been working fine so far :)

Some of my favourite running spots

         

Running per se is not a problem. I really enjoy it. What is a problem is not allowing myself to eat as much as before. The hardest part is certainly saying no to chocolate (biscuits, pastries and sugar in general) and eating only veg for dinner instead of the usual dish of pasta. Then there is the social aspect. It is incredily hard to go out for dinner with friends or invite people to your place and watch them eat delicious dishes while you munch on lettuce. 

Time management is also a problem and not just because of the time it takes to get ready, go for a run, answer unwanted questions on the street, come back, take a shower, drop dead. No. The truth is that the more you exercise, the more water you drink  and the more you drink, the more you have to pee, which means that roughly every 20 minutes I have to stop doing whatever I am doing and go to the loo, just like a middle-aged woman (too much detail, I know!). Not to mention sleeping. I have always been a night owl. I used to go to bed late and wake up reasonably early. That was before my whole body demanded more rest. And before my sleeping patterns were disrupted by a snoring dog (she might be too small to even qualify as a dog, but jeez, she snores like a freight train). Now I am a zombie any time before 9 am.

On the plus side, I really like the fact that I now have a healthy excuse to get out of the house (and it's not just going to the bar to have a drink). Going out means I get to see people, which is not something freelancers should take for granted. And it's great to go running with the dog too. Believe it or not, the snoring dog is a great runner. She's quite funny to look at, she runs like a rabbit, but she's incredibly fast and has really good stamina. The two of us are so coordinated that people started asking me if she is trained. There's a plus on the social side as well. Being more fit means that it's much easier to climb up to your friend's place on the fifth floor to have dinner with them. Technically you've already burnt all the calories you are going to ingurgitate. And we are back to square one. 

* Not true. I started writing this yesterday and stopped because I had work to do. Today it was raining all day and I really didn't feel like getting soaked. People pity me anyway, if they see me in the rain it can only get worse :))))) So much for doing things regularly. 

Glocalisation

It's that time of the year when my parents serve me lettuce and other green veg and go:

"I'm not sure I'd eat it, though. It's a bit old. I've pick it from the garden a whole five minutes ago."

It's become a silly in-joke. Every time we eat veg we my parents grew in our garden we need to analyse its taste and texture, decide wether it is good, compare it to the one you buy at the supermarket and conclude that it's a fine thing to get food from your very personal grocery two minutes away from the kitchen. It's the same for the yoghurt, the pasta, the bread and the biscuits we make (yes, me too :) And, of course, for the olive oil we use. We haven't started producing oil (yet), we buy it from Croatian friends, but every time we get a new batch we have a tasting session with at least five different samples which we mark according to strict criteria, compare our marks, discuss about it and decide which oil we are going to use.

In our family you just have to follow the donoteatanythingbuthealthystuff philosophy. My dad really annoys me when I decide to treat myself to a chocolate snack of some sort (being perfectly aware that it's not the best thing to do) and he sits next to me and reads out all the ingredients that are so bad for me. Of course he wants me to eat less of the unhealthy stuff so that he can have some of it too. 

My latest addition to the list of yummy wholesome (?) food are fried sage leaves. I don't particularly like the taste of sage so I wasn't very keen to try it, but when I did I instantly changed my mind. It was just like eating sage-flavoured crackers. Yummy!

This evening I also tried something new. I was having a bowl of lettuce from our garden for dinner and found a flower among the green leaves.

I thought: "Aw, cute. It must have ended up here by mistake." So I called my parents to tell them about it: 

"Dad, I found a flower in my salad. It's actually really cute, but maybe tell mum to be a bit more careful when she picks lettuce from our garden."

"Huh, your mum must have done it on purpose because I had a flower in my salad at lunchtime too."

Yes, my parents can sometimes be a wee bit over the top with this whole healthyisyummy thing...But hey, sometimes they are really sweet!

In case you were wondering...My poor Chinese rose died of a painful death. Killed by too much love water (my fault) and lice (not my fault).